Reducing Costs – GMA

GMA help businesses to have a secure and efficient IT systems. Their services range from email support, VPN and internet support, web and digital services to telephone services and more.

Recovery Plan Covid-19Asking staff to work from home has been a new concept for some businesses. This may provide businesses with the want/willingness to continue some aspects of this once lockdown restrictions have been eased/lifted:

GMA have put together a list of things worth consideration when you have staff returning to the office after a prolonged period of remote working.

• All the equipment that you have sent employees home with must be returned if they are not continuing to work remotely in some capacity. Check the items back in using the serial number logs taken when the equipment was given out.

• Decide who no
longer requires VPN access and remove.
Don’t forget to cancel any additional licences (read the cancellation
information) and bandwidth purchased for remote working if it is no longer
required.

• Keep alerting all
staff to the possibility of email-borne threats and other social engineering
attacks. There will always be scams,
phishing attacks, and other threats. You
are now in the habit of alerting staff to possible attacks…keep this
going. As always, the message to
employees should be to not open unfamiliar emails and certainly don’t click on
any attachments or links to external pages from any suspect emails.

• Continue to make
employees aware that they must use only strong, unique passwords to sign-in to
your network, and that these details should be changed regularly e.g. every 3
months and that multi-factor authentication is still being used by employees.

• USB drives
sometimes contain sensitive data and can easily be lost, the advice on this
remains the same. They are also an easy
way for malware to find its way onto your computers. We strongly recommend using anti-virus tools
where appropriate, only allow products supplied by your organisation to be
used, protect data at rest on removable media, request that staff use
alternative means of transfer such as cloud storage or collaboration tools.

• Communicate with
your staff, let them know how returning to the workplace will happen. Provide advice and support where necessary,
this may not be a simple transition.
Some people will want to get back to the workplace very quickly, others
may find it noisy and disruptive for a short while whilst they reconnect with
commuting to work and being in the workplace.

• In order to work remotely and still collaborate you took
advantage of technology. Is this the new
way of working for the business? If not and you are going back to the way you
worked before the crisis cancel any licenses no longer required (read the
cancellation information) and ensure that all staff know what software to use
and procedures and policy to follow.

• If you are
continuing to allow some staff remote working, then please keep in place any
policies brought in for a device is lost or stolen.

• This situation
also highlights how business continuity planning and disaster recovery plans
should have disease epidemic and pandemic scenarios built-in to them for the
future, and this situation is likely to expose what work needs to be done by
many companies in the months and years to come.
Embracing the technology now will provide SME’s and larger organisations
the ability to move forward in a world where remote working may become the new
norm’.

If members are unsure about any of the items above or have
other questions, please do not hesitate to contact savings@fitzroviapartnership.com or
contact GMA directly using the details provided above.

On Return

Once businesses return to their bases, GMA can continue to
manage IT and telecom services for member businesses at a preferred rate.
Please contact savings@fitzroviapartnership.com to
find out more.